May 04, 2009

RIP: A Remix Manifesto Released as Pay-what-you-like Download

The celebrated "open source documentary" RIP: A Remix Manifesto
has found a progressive, forward-thinking distributor that is making
the film available as a download on a pay-what-you-want basis (alas,
the offer is US only, due to the insanity of the film industry):

It's been a peculiar road to get to the point where we could release
the film as a download, because obviously this is something we wanted
to do right from the get go. But since we have so many partners that
helped us make the film, including theatrical and television
distributors, it was a delicate balancing act to make sure the good
faith they showed in making the film would be rewarded, that we
wouldn't undercut their efforts to promote and recoup on the film by
giving it away. So we waited a while before launching the various
online permutations. The National Film Board [of Canada] put up a
chaptered version during our U.S. premiere at South by Southwest in
March, and we embedded calls to action into each chapter.

Around SXSW, we partnered with two American partners --
Disinformation for our DVD release, and BSide for the theatrical side
of things. And at the first meeting I had with them, it became clear
that we needed to go down this road. We knew the film would appear on
file-sharing networks immediately and we knew the audience for the film
wanted and expected it to be online. So knowing that, we wanted there
to be a method for those who wanted to pay to do so.

Comments

The celebrated "open source documentary" RIP: A Remix Manifesto
has found a progressive, forward-thinking distributor that is making
the film available as a download on a pay-what-you-want basis (alas,
the offer is US only, due to the insanity of the film industry):

It's been a peculiar road to get to the point where we could release
the film as a download, because obviously this is something we wanted
to do right from the get go. But since we have so many partners that
helped us make the film, including theatrical and television
distributors, it was a delicate balancing act to make sure the good
faith they showed in making the film would be rewarded, that we
wouldn't undercut their efforts to promote and recoup on the film by
giving it away. So we waited a while before launching the various
online permutations. The National Film Board [of Canada] put up a
chaptered version during our U.S. premiere at South by Southwest in
March, and we embedded calls to action into each chapter.

Around SXSW, we partnered with two American partners --
Disinformation for our DVD release, and BSide for the theatrical side
of things. And at the first meeting I had with them, it became clear
that we needed to go down this road. We knew the film would appear on
file-sharing networks immediately and we knew the audience for the film
wanted and expected it to be online. So knowing that, we wanted there
to be a method for those who wanted to pay to do so.